Looking at life through a funhouse mirror
NASA recently announced that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has moved into interstellar space. This journey has taken forty years and that is merely a drop in the bucket when it comes to the time it would take to actually get somewhere tangible beyond our solar system. People that know these things say in about 300 …
I was walking home the other day and saw a yellow bird. But of course there is much more to this story. I was walking home on Oriole Parkway, a Toronto street in an otherwise leafy and urban area with a volume of traffic and illicit speed that makes it more like a major roadway, …
You know you are getting old when you start hearing some of the music of your youth that was considered edgy at the time wafting gently out of the speakers while you are at the grocery store. I swear I heard ‘White Rabbit’, ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’, and ‘Dead Babies’ all in the course …
You may have missed the latest eruption of severe first world problems. If that is the case, I am happy to be of service to fill you in. It all started in Iceland, of all places. Usually Iceland is pretty well behaved (except for Bjork of course) and doesn’t get on the radar much unless …
Courtesy of my friends at CBC radio today, I was reminded (if I ever knew in the first place) that our national anthem is a French song that didn’t have English words until 1907 and the version we learned in the 1960s is quite different than the version millennials sing today and furthermore, didn’t even …
I clearly have too much time on my hands because I’m pretty sure normal people’s first thought when going grocery shopping is how the store should be reorganized to make it more logical. I’m not talking about the ‘merchandizing strategies’ that place random promotions at the end of the aisle or filter you through the …
The home version of the microwave oven turned fifty this year. Although the industrial microwave oven has been around since 1947, we did not get the chance to add it to the list of standard kitchen appliances until 1967. The delay in ‘retailization’ was of course due to getting the price down to consumer budgets, …
I swear this is not related to April Fools. Indeed, if it was a joke it is far too cruel a one to be played on April 1. In case you missed the news, Crayola is retiring the ‘dandelion’ crayon from the box of 24. Apparently, this is only the third instance of booting a …
Six Mile Lake is a lake in the Muskoka region of Ontario. I should note this location is definitely not chopped liver but certainly not the foie gras of THE Muskoka lakes frequented by Goldie Hawn, Cindy Crawford and various NHL hockey players (although Martin Short does have a place on Lake Joseph so Canadian …
It may have escaped your notice that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the Yukon Gold potato this year, so I feel it is my duty to bring it to your attention. You might think the Yukon Gold is just another piece of produce that finds its way into your kitchen …